


Scroll

by anzallamar



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29616246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anzallamar/pseuds/anzallamar
Summary: /relationshipadvicecan't get him to notice me???u/wolfkissedI (25/F) keep trying to get this guy's (22/M) attention but he seems completely stuck up. I'm pretty sure he likes me because he let me murder my nemesis, and I've been trying to get him to notice me by aggressively killing his enemies as well, but it doesn't work??  I even wrote him a poem, he kept talking about other dead people, wtf do i dou/smuggleryou wrote him a what? i think you also need help
Relationships: Eivor & Hytham (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Scroll

“What do you keep in all of these?” Eivor said, fidgeting with one of the scrolls that had quickly amassed on the shelves.

“Do not touch them carelessly, Eivor. They are very fragile.” Hytham said, barely looking up. It was the first thing he had been taught as a novice scribe, many lives past. _Parchment is fragile, and precious._ “And, to answer your question, I have been writing my obversations.”

“On what?” Eivor was more curious than any cat. Ever since they had established their strange little partnership, by which he meant ever since she had started murdering his enemies with a tremendous facility, the drengr had made a habit of hanging around the bureau, asking about whatever caught her fancy. It was basically a raid, he guessed, and he also admitted he had begun to enjoy answering. It wasn’t just that Eivor’s questions were guaranteed to pose an intellectual challenge at best (and, at times to make him lose his composure); Hytham thought that after all, his masters had been right: he _did_ enjoy the sound of his own voice and he really _was_ an unsufferable know-it-all. 

“Well, on our quest to end the Order in Mercia, of course. I must keep a detailed report for when Basim comes back.” _If he comes back_ , Hytham thought, _I am going to need all available information to have even the slightest chance to justify this madness I have created._ _This extremely_ effective _madness._ “Then … my observations. On things.” He shrugged. “On your Norse customs. Recipes. The weather - “

  
“Freya have mercy.” Eivor stomped over and nearly pulled him out of the chair, grasping him firmly. “You wrote a whole herd’s worth of sheepskin _on the fucking weather_? Sigurd will never forgive me.” She looked genuinely worried. “I have betrayed his trust as a host: I have let you go insane.”

“I’m not insane, Eivor. Writing information down is the most effective way of preserving it: I had been many years a scribe before I chose to join the Hidden Ones. I used to do this all day, on many differents topics and wisdoms. You are hurting my arms.” Hytham patted himself down as Eivor relented, mumbling an apology. “Besides, I am quite fond of writing. I find it helps clear the mind. And of reading, of course.” 

Eivor shrugged. “If it is worth hearing, it should be made in song.”

“But people die, Eivor, and voices are lost. Songs change, and are changed. But if things are written down… Many wise men are long dead; but when I read their words, it is almost as if they are here, conversing with me.”

“You should talk more to the living, I think. You could start with me, and work your way up. Considering your friendship with our clan, I will, for you, even concede to discuss the weather.” Eivor shook her head. “It rains all the time here. Exciting. Very wet.”

“It is not so strange, Eivor. Perhaps, one day, my writings will be of help to someone that is not even born yet! Can you imagine?”

“An insomniac, maybe. Perhaps I should come over here the next night I cannot sleep.” 

“Surely you have no shortage of stories to help you fall asleep. I thought I heard Alvis work on a song about your feud with Kjotve. Or was it another duel of yours?” 

“That? Small thing. I write those myself, you know, he simply adjusts them. But I know all the songs, all the best ones. I need some fresh material.” Eivor perched on the desk. It will ruin the maps, he thought. _I should tell her to stop. Oh well, she’s all over Mercia now_ _._ “Tell me one of yours. There must be a good storyteller from where you come from.”

“There was someone who once told a story so well, she saved herself and the whole kingdom. Will leave you my maps alone if you I tell you how?” Hytham pulled out what he had been writing moments before from under her. Luckily the ink had already dried. 

“Might.”

“Very well. Many years ago, in Baghdad, a young man became king. And a cruel king he was. Since he had suffered a broken heart, he decreed that he would marry each night, picking from the most beautiful and gentle women in the city. And then his bride would be executed the next morning, with no delay, so that he would not suffer again as he did. This went on for many nights…” 

“How many nights? It would have stopped at the first had he picked me.”

“I did say _gentle_ women, Eivor. Don’t you solve all problems with your axe?”

“Some things you only solve with murder, Hytham: I’m sure your little scrolls are full of it.”

“But the story would be short indeed.”

“I concede. Let’s say no one murders the mad king.”

“No one does. One night, however, a young woman volunteers. She marries, and then, when they are alone, she persuades the king to listen to a story.”

“Have to tell this to Ivarr then. Could be of some help to him, you know, with his _condition_ being-”

“The _story,_ Eivor _,_ is so good that the king does not notice dawn has come, and it is now time for his new bride to be carried off to the executioner’s block. But if she dies, he is never going to know how the story ends!”

“Clever.”

“And he cannot resist. So he lets her live another day. And another night.” 

“And her story is so good?” 

“It is.”

“A thousand nights?”

“A thousand and one.”

“Are you _sure_ this is not a metaphor fo-” 

“ _Eivor_. The story is so good, and the woman so clever, that after one thousand and one nights, the king realizes the error of his ways and repents. He becomes a wise ruler. All because of a story. See? The best storyteller in the world.” 

“Hytham. I see now that Basim was right. You are indeed lethal.” Eivor said, earnestly. “By which I mean that you absolutely _murder_ every story you try to tell. There is no life left to the plot when it passes your lips. How do you even do it? It’s like you are some sort of negative skald.” 

“How would _you_ do it? Let us pretend you were the woman in the story: your life is at stake. And there is no axe.” 

“I was hoping you’d ask me that, since I’ve composed the start of Amunet’s saga. Listen here, I’ll show you how it’s done.” Eivor cleared her throat; the scar on her neck rippled, and then she started:

Hear! Praise of the prowess of Amunet,

wrist-bladed, in days long past,

we will sing, and vengeance that she won,

off the twelve-headed Snake of the Ancients,

that, cursed be their names, her honey-sweet son,

tore from her, beloved. Since then,

she has travelled, alone; yet fate repaid her:

for she gained oath-children, in all lands,

and they, relentless,

pursue her quest, till the accursed folk,

both far and near, who follow the snake-path,

will lie slain.

“Well?” Eivor looked expectantly; Hytham realized this was actually the whole point of her talk that afternoon; all else a pretext to show him this achievement.

“This is … incredible. Eivor. I do not know what to say. I knew you were talented but -”

“I guess you will not execute me in the morning, then?” 

“I would - Eivor, will you compose more of this? It’s just that – if there should ever be – I mean, it could be useful, were I ever to gain a _novice_ here, to easily pass our knowledge-” 

“Admit you want to hear more for yourself, Hytham.” 

“I do! Of course I do.” Hytham paused. “Which is just as well, because it wouldn’t do to alert the Order to our presence by singing it at the next festival, enthralling as it is. So you have only myself as an audience, I fear.” 

“Do not worry. I will only sing it for you. One stanza at the time.” Eivor laughed. “Perhaps I can make a thousand and one. What will happen then, I wonder?”

“Unfortunately we do not have much material on Amunet.” Hytham said, sweating a little. “But there is also Iltani! She poisoned the great conqueror, Alexander-” Had he stoked the fire? Perhaps it was too bright. Perhaps he had a fever. It was important, crucial not to stop talking. “ - and then -” 

Eivor was looking at him with the concern reserved to those who spontaneously grow a second head.

“Did you get very far in your training, Hytham?”

“Not as I had hoped.”

“It seems you do not yet possess that sight-beyond-sight you were speaking of that time in the woods. That instant knowledge of what lies in front of you.”

Hytham swallowed. It was hard enough to meet her disconcerting green gaze in normal circumstance, but he simply could not deal with the strange light in her eyes now. That, and she had draped all over the Mercia map. “ I suppose I am just an acolyte. ”

“I do not know what that means - “ Eivor pulled up a finger, menacingly “- and I am not asking.” The drengr sighed, sliding off the desk. All the papers were in disarray and Hytham was not feeling swell either. 

““I suppose I will work on more stanzas. Until then, Hytham.”

“Peace be with you, Eivor.” Hytham felt the terrible inkling he had botched something. He thought that if he had been standing on the edge of his usual cliff, he would not have minded jumping head-first. 

**Author's Note:**

> /relationshipadvice  
> can't get him to notice me???  
> u/wolfkissed  
> I (25/F) keep trying to get this guy's (22/M) attention but he seems completely stuck up. I'm pretty sure he likes me because he let me murder my nemesis, and I've been trying to get him to notice me by aggressively killing his enemies as well, but it doesn't work?? I even wrote him a poem, he kept taking about other dead people, wtf do i do
> 
> u/smuggler  
> you wrote what? i think you also need help
> 
> u/redhairedjarlsk  
> i think you're both very sweet, ngl wish someone wrote ME a poem 
> 
> u/wolfkissed  
> have literally told him i will show up to his house at night because i can't sleep, didn't work
> 
> u/smuggler  
> hopeless. consider becoming a nun
> 
> u/eaglet  
> Have you considered there might be a common theme to those stories he tells you about? Maybe he is trying to express something.


End file.
